headhonchoII wrote:I wouldn't be into opening a full service restaurant or late night bar. I'm sure there are more simple operations that can potentially make money.
Yes. But realize it's a lot harder than it sounds. I'm putting together my business plan for a pub and there are so many things you don't think about.
--Taxes, Insurance, Licenses
--Do you hire employees? At what point? Full time or part time? If you hire them and business sucks, where will you get the $$ from? If you don't hire them and business is good, how will you handle the overflow? You might get a percentage of people that won't touch your shop unless a cute 19 year old skinny girl is serving drinks. You might also hire that person and customers harass her. Is that her job and she should suck it up? Or do you decide that's not what you want at the bar?
--Menu? And how much each item costs vs. price.
--What is different about your bar? This is key. All the bars in Taichung (when it had them) all had unique things about them.
--Marketing. Remember here, you may only be thinking of foreign audience, but then your bar will fail. No matter what, Taiwanese will be the main source of income. How do you reach that target?
--Cost of upgrading or creating the bar. Realize most bars that are closed in Taichung are not usable as bars now. A friend of mine just moved his bar and I asked about the price of the actual bar itself and the shelves behind it. His reply: About $250,000 NT. Now, he had it custom made exactly how he wants it, but if you're just looking to rent out a space and serve drinks on card tables, that place is going to suck.
--Initial inventory. What do you need and how much of it?
--How will you handle certain types of customers? Someone comes in with a group of people and orders a bottle of Jack Daniels. Do they pay as they go or do you run the risk of them leaving without paying?
A huge reason bars fail is largely because of the bright-eyed idea they bring. A person starts a bar thinking, "I wish I had a place like Cheers, where people hang out and drink all day and night." Then people look at markup on the product. Bars and pubs have huge markups on their product. Every time I consider a drink and look at my cost vs. my income on said drink, my lungs skip a beat. I have to remind myself that pouring or mixing drinks is such a small part of the bar business.
If you're serious about this, those are just the initial questions to start to plan out. Trust me, so many more questions will come up as you plan. What's more, the start up cost is staggering.
